Browsing by Subject "Habitus"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Choosing By Habitus: Multi-Case Study of Families & Schools in the Context of School Choice
    (2016-04) Madrid Miranda, Romina
    This qualitative multi-case study explores the dynamics among schools and families during the process of choosing a school through a social class lens and includes narrative data gathered from families and school professionals in four schools within one local commune of Chile. Findings illustrate that families and schools enacted social class through their habitus, Bourdieu’s concept of socialized norms or tendencies (and values) that guide behavior and thinking (Bourdieu, 1977). Three types of habitus emerge: historical, aspirational, and survival. In the case of families, habitus is expressed in the process of choosing a school. In the case of schools, staff members activate elements of their habitus in the ways they perceive and face the process of enrollment and recruitment of students. The study illuminates the ways in which social class moderates school choice by affecting not only families but also schools. Because schools have preferences in the type of families they seek and wish to retain, they reinforce the habitus of the families. The relationship between institutions and families points to the complex relationships among social class, social capital, identity, and educational institutions in a setting where choosing among different educational options is normative. Conclusions raise questions about; the role of habitus in the process of choosing a school, the influence of social class, through habitus, by impacting the ways families choose schools and schools recruit families; and the contribution of schools in social reproduction.
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    Contradictions of Belonging: The Educational Aspirations and Agency of Youth in the Somali Diaspora
    (2018-06) Tzenis, Joanna
    Many young people turn to education as a way to achieve what they hope their lives will be like in the future. This qualitative longitudinal study drew on the capabilities approach and the concept of habitus to understand the ways in which American youth in the Somali diaspora described their educational aspirations and how they exercised their abilities to achieve them. My findings show that youth in the Somali diaspora had aspirations that were influenced by their parents’ pasts as Somali refugees. Many aspired to be doctors so that they might one day be of service to people living in Somalia and so that they would earn enough to care for family members. Aspirations changed (and became more open-ended) through time among the high school youth as they began to more deeply engage in new social fields, like school. My findings also show that youth enacted agency by navigating contradictions they encountered in different social fields. Being Somali (and Muslim) made them targets for discrimination, but also offered them security and strategies to do well in school. Youth navigated a concomitant sense of belonging and isolation in the diaspora—where their biggest social supports, their parents and other diasporic resources, also prompted them to self-exclude from activities outside of the diaspora.
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    From traditional to digital: understanding remediation of the postcard through the case of PostSecret.com
    (2013-08) Armfield, Dawn Maurie
    PostSecret has been credited with blurring the lines between private and public information and traditional media formats and digital media formats. In 2004, what began as one man's art project became a worldwide phenomenon that has continued past the publishing of this dissertation, a lifetime in online lifespans. This dissertation examines a rhetoric of remediation, the dynamics and rhetorical aims of ethos, habitus, and materiality that construct, support, and complicate a traditional to digital remediation of postcards that furthers our understanding of what it means to meet audience expectations and needs in multiple spaces.
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    Warfare And Practice At Maiden Castle
    (2019-04) Harkleroad, Eric
    I examine the changing place of war, peace, and chronic insecurity in the lives of Iron Age people at Maiden Castle. Using GIS software, I examine the changing location of artifacts in the daily lives of people as well as the spatial relationships between these artifacts. Using ideas from Practice Theory I demonstrate how warfare went from a communal activity which was used to promote the idea of the community over the individual to an activity connected with prestige and individuality.